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Murakami defends Ben 10: Alien Force

Here in my house we looked forward to the debut of Ben 10: Alien Force with something akin to reverence. “What do you think it’ll be like?” my son asked me, several hundred times.

“I don’t know, honey,” I would respond with infinite patience (ha!), “Why don’t we wait and see?” And then—right before I was going to have to duct tape his mouth shut or start wearing earplugs—the show debuted.

The verdict in our house? Well, now instead of asking what I think it’ll be, my son trails me wanting to fill me in on every last new alien and asking me which one is my favorite. (I’m supposed to have a favorite alien? This was not in the manual.) In other words, this newest incarnation of Ben 10 is an unmitigated success, so far as we’re concerned. But just to make sure, I went so far as to ask my son if he liked this better than the original.

“Oh yes!” he assured me. So I asked him why that was, and he said, “Because now Ben’s got more betterer aliens!” So, you know, there you go.

In less than a half hour the first internet troll came out from under his bridge to start screaming how he hated, hated, hated Ben 10: Alien Force. Within the hour said bottom feeder was joined by a horde of others. They felt it their right to vent and mewl pitifully about the changes to the show. They called it a grand conspiracy by Cartoon Network to sell new lines of action figures. They accused all of even more heinous crimes.

Murakami does an admirable job of defending the series… not that you’d expect any less from the man behind an alien hero named Brainstorm. Go read it; you won’t be sorry.